"To Make a Good Society"

The face of the Republican Party, as shown by its candidates, had never appeared so photogenic, so confident, so politically winning. Gazing out from the front pages of the nation's press, it smoothly combined the cool self-assurance of Thomas Edmund Dewey, 46, with the genial Western affability of smiling Earl Warren, 57.

Political Bull's-Eye. The exhausted, sweating convention delegates had known and got almost exactly what they wanted. The real battle was never over issues. The Republican Party from the outset wanted someone like Arthur Vandenberg or Harold Stassen or Tom Dewey--all men who believed that the U.S. must accept its leadership in the world. The nomination of Tom Dewey conclusively routed the corporal's guard of Republican isolationists. They had rallied behind Robert Taft. even though he himself said that "isolationism" was a dead issue.

The nomination of Earl Warren was a political bull's-eye. He gave the ticket a psychological lift; he would unquestionably attract millions of "independent voters." Democrats had hoped to make hay out of Republican failure to push through reclamation projects in the West. But it would be futile to play that game against Republican Earl Warren, one of the foremost spokesmen of the eager-beaver West.

Barring a political miracle, it was the kind of ticket that could not fail to sweep the Republican Party back into power. What kind of an administration would it bring with it?

Go Slow, More Surely. In large part it would reflect the careful personality of Tom Dewey himself. It was just that thought which had caused the real opposition to his nomination. Though nearly all Republicans respected him for his administrative skill, and admired him for his ability to command the loyalty of top-notch aides, a variety of Republicans felt he was not the kind of man they could cotton to. Old Guardists could love John Bricker, young folks could idealize Harold Stassen. others could be devoted to Statesman Vandenberg. Dewey, it was variously said, was too mechanically precise to be liked, too watchfully unbending to be confided in, too coldly ambitious to be loved. Few if any Republicans doubted that Dewey's administration could be counted on to get things done with competence and tidy dispatch. It would move surely, after poring over all the facts. It would be alert, but would avoid any sudden changes of policy. It might be short on imagination, but it would certainly be long on efficiency.

"Proof to Come." In the critical year of 1948, would that be good enough? On the night he accepted his nomination Tom Dewey showed his own realization that more was needed. Said he: "Our people yearn to move to higher ground, to find a common purpose in the finer things which unite us ... The unity we seek is more than material. Our problem is within ourselves. We have found the means to blow the world, physically, apart. Spiritually, we have yet to find the means to put together the world's broken pieces, to bind up its wounds, to make a good society, a community of men of good will that fits our dreams."

Those, as Manhattan's stubbornly anti-Republican Star headlined them, were "NOBLE WORDS, PROOF TO COME." Proof was what the U.S. people would want to see. Tom Dewey had already shown that he could mature and grow in political stature, that he could learn political lessons. Would he now demonstrate to a hopeful nation and a watching world that he could match his efficiency with imagination and his genius for teamwork with bold leadership?

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